


Moments in between

by rillaelilz



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, M/M, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-14
Updated: 2018-02-14
Packaged: 2019-03-18 12:37:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13681827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rillaelilz/pseuds/rillaelilz
Summary: “You never told me,” Kili rasps, “but Iknew,” he says, defiant and beautiful, like a godling challenging his maker, “I knew, I always knew.”





	Moments in between

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the WinterFRE 2018, prompt #20. Forehead kisses.
> 
> Or: That one soulmate AU where you only see in black and white until you meet your soulmate (and go back to b&w when they die).

 

 

_The stolen glances_  
_The moments in between the actions_  
_The dice are rolled_  
_The skeleton sits by the fork in the road_  
_The path that twists and turns  
_ _The journey goes on_

(Stateless - Bluetrace)

 

 

Fili first witnesses pink on his brother’s cheeks.

The fact of  _Kili_  hits him slowly, in little bits scattered across the room. It comes with tiny noises and Amad’s shushing sounds; cradled to Amad’s breast like bread in a bundle when Uncle leaves for a hunting trip.

It comes with spindly legs peeking out of the blanket folds, thin and updrawn like a grasshopper’s; and with flailing hands that latch around Fili’s forefingers, warm and blotchy and curiously strong. And then Kili’s unseeing eyes open, and the world bursts into colour.

Fili doesn’t even know what  _colour_  is. He only knows the roses blooming on the baby’s soft cheeks, the muddled brown of his hair, and they’re nothing but feelings taking root in Fili’s chest. Kili’s skin is tenderness, and the wonder of finding that it is the same hue as Fili’s own hands. He catches sight of lilac flowers embroidered on Amad’s nightshirt, and they’re warmth, familiarity.

When he first sees the blue of his mother’s eyes, it’s not  _blue_ ; it’s a rush of joy, and light, and nostalgia, the heartrending feeling of déjà-vu only adults should know.

“Amad,” he gasps, looking in her eyes, drinking in the lush black of her hair and the pale pink of her lips, awed and breathless. He has no words for this yet - for colours, and love, and a happiness so complete it makes your very heart ache, it’s stretched so full.

He cups his hands around Kili’s small fists, overwhelmed, the ghost of laughter already on his lips. Kili can’t know this, but he’s just given Fili the world.

“It’s beautiful,” Fili can only say, and his mother laughs, and Kili stirs in her arms.

“That’s good,” Dis agrees, and then she winks at Fili, and teaches him how baby kisses work. You kiss their forehead, she says, not the top of their head where it’s too delicate, or their cheeks where it’ll make them fussy; and you go gentle like a butterfly, for babies are flower-soft and easy to bruise.

So that’s how Fili kisses Kili; gentle lips to his soft skin, Kili’s forehead the colour of all things sweet and dear to Fili’s heart.

 

 

When Kili is two, he can tell his blue building blocks apart from the red ones. When he drops the one, far and unnoticed under the table, Dis tries to soothe him, bribe him with honeyed milk, but Kili cries and sobs until he’s handed his blue triangle again, and banishes the red one to a lonely corner of his crib. 

Fili sits back, looking at their mother with a strange, tight feeling in his tummy. Dis doesn’t say anything; she just smiles, ruffles both his and Kili’s hair, and bakes a cherry pie for dinner.

 

When Kili’s seven, he piles his flowers in carefully messy bunches, yellow with yellow, purple with purple, holding them out for Fili to weave them into a clumsy wreath. Dis watches them silently, pink petals strewn over her apron, plaiting a flower crown for lazy Bretha to paw and sniff at.

Later, she accepts Fili’s wreath with a smile – something sad hidden in the corner of her mouth.

“My love,” she says softly, “I think the two of you will have to look after each other for a long time.”

 

When Kili is eighteen, he comes home with a dark bruise spreading under his left eye, sniffling proudly even with a six inches long tear in his sleeve. Fili shuffles in behind him, mud spattered all over his clothes, his hair in a tangle from Derin’s grip.

The other boys were laughing at Kili, he tells Dis after she’s put her youngest in Thorin’s care. They were calling him names; liar, they said, braggart, because it’s so rare for a child to see anything but a thousand shades of grey, and they thought Kili was making it all up, stealing somebody else’s tale.

He breaks apart then, like bread left in a bowl of milk for too long, wetness trailing down his cheeks and falling in the bathtub, sprinkling his red knees.

“It’s my fault, Ma,” he sobs mournfully, tears trickling down along his little nose, “it’s all my fault.”

Dis cradles his cheek in her hand, her face all soft lines and little crinkles - the ones that come from her smiles.

“Fili, my sweet,” she says, “love is no fault. It can never be.”

She kisses the crown of his head, heedless of water and the bitter tang of soap, and Fili wants to believe her so, so badly, he almost does.

 

 

They lie down in the grass sometimes, arms stretched out to reach for the sun and paw at the fluffy clouds up above, the delicate scent of chamomile flowers hanging in the air.

Some summers make the sky so blue and clear, it’s almost blinding to look at. It tugs at the strings of Fili’s heart - something familiar, something unknown, something only half-recalled. He remembers the first days of this, when different shades came to him with different emotions, and he wonders if it was ever the same for Kili - if colours ever came to him in the shape of feelings twinging in his chest.

He doesn’t ask. Instead he says, “What’s your favourite colour?”

Kili giggles and sits on Fili’s stomach, triumphant like Bretha with cream staining her whiskers.

“Fili!” he answers, tooth-gap showing in his proud grin. Fili tackles him to the ground, and tickles him until Kili’s laughing so hard, he starts hiccupping.

 

Fili asks him again, when Kili is twenty-five and growing out of his chubby cheeks. When he’s thirty-four and gaining his first, fuzzy hints of hair under his chin. When Kili’s forty-seven, and his shoulders are still thin, but his arms and legs are long and wiry, and his smile as bright as sunlight. Time and again, Fili asks him the very same question, but Kili’s answer never changes.

 

 

Some days, Kili’s gaze lingers on Fili one second too long. Other days, he doesn’t bother to look away at all.

He watches Fili out the corner of his eye at the smithy, when Thorin deems it time to start teaching Fili how to tame iron and sharpen a blade. 

He stands a few, careful steps away when they take turns at the basin to wash away the day’s sweat and fatigue, his eyes darker than a moonless night, before turning away; the bare expanse of his back facing Fili in the dim light. Sometimes Fili can feel him holding his breath, and ends up holding his own too, hardly daring to make a sound in the stillness of the room.

Sometimes, too many times, Fili catches himself staring back, stealing from his brother those few secrets Kili can’t hide; the velvety flicker of his tongue as Kili wets his lips; the ripple of tendons underneath his olive skin when Kili’s fingers twitch, or his hand closes in a fist; the parting of his lips as he sucks in a breath, a sound so soft, so private, it spreads goosebumps over Fili’s arms.

They never talk about it. About the way Kili’s eyes always search for him, and his head tilts to catch Fili’s voice like a fawn straining to listen for the rustle of leaves in the wind. About the way Fili comes to relish it, to treasure every glance and anticipate the next one - lost in between wooing and being wooed.

 

 

They will still lie in the grass in the heat of summer; in a clearing in the woods, on the moss-coated ground by the stream, in the cool shade of rowan trees. Kili captures butterflies in his cupped hands, a flutter of blue and bright orange and cream-white shivering beautifully in the crook between his palms.

He shows each one of them to Fili, knees smeared green with crushed grass, his hands in Fili’s hands. If Fili ever trembles, it goes unmentioned.

The last butterfly of the season has dark wings dappled with white, and it slips out of Kili’s fingers abruptly, flying up and away, a black spot against the greying sky.

Fili watches it go, eyes trailing after the dancing wings; but down here on solid ground, Kili’s gaze never leaves him. His breathing is quiet; his fingers twine with Fili’s, slow, laced with purpose. Fili shivers.

“Looks like it’s going to rain,” he says, standing on weak legs.

Kili’s hands leave his, and Fili’s palms tingle with the impression of his brother’s touch, warm with Kili’s warmth. Here was something, Fili thinks, and he just broke it. Perhaps he wanted to. Perhaps he had to.

“Yes,” Kili mutters, and turns away towards home.

“Kili-”

When Kili looks back, his eyes are dark, lost behind tendrils of mist, like the hills before a storm. If Fili could only ask now,  _What do you see_ , and _Does it mean anything to you_ , maybe Kili would answer. But Fili doesn’t ask.

“You already know.”

Kili’s voice is the crackle before thunder; the whisper of a titan, soft and powerful at once.

“It’s you. Fili.”

And then he’s gone, vanished into the tangle of trees, and Fili can do nothing but follow his tracks home.

 

 

Kili traces the seam of Fili’s lips with rough fingertips, his eyes half lost in the shadows. The fire is dying down, and it’s just them and the night and the coppery glint of the last flames across Kili’s skin.

_You’re too young_ , Fili wants to say, and  _No_  and  _Please_  and  _What if you regret this_ , but Kili’s breath is the only sound around them, the only wall between them, and it’s crumbling away with the pounding of his heart.

When Kili’s kisses find his skin, one under his cheekbone, the next in the corner of his eye, it’s only relief for the space on an instant. Fili’s eyelashes catch gently in the curve of Kili’s lips, and he tenses in the cradle of his brother’s hands, breath torn painfully from his chest.

Kili’s mouth moves to the fragile shell of his eyelid, and Fili wants, and he doesn’t, and he wants some more. Kili’s warmth lingers on his forehead, the fullness of his lips pressed to Fili’s fever-hot skin, so perfect he can feel the shape of them branding him like Mahal’s mark upon his brow, and Fili knows he’s coming undone.

He braces himself against Kili’s chest as their lips meet, fingers curling in the soot-stained folds of Kili’s shirt, and if ever he was lost, it is now.

Kili is no longer a child and not yet a full-grown dwarf, and his touch lies somewhere in between the two. His hands, already roughened by hard work and Uncle’s unforgiving training, are gentle on Fili, yet strong in their push and pull - now slipping through his hair, now fisting in his tunic to bring him flush against Kili’s body. His lips are eager, yet his tongue licks softly into Fili’s mouth, shy to the point of tenderness.

Kili has never kissed anyone else, Fili realises.

Kili has never had to see the world in black and white, and for a moment Fili hates himself for taking this away from him - the boundless joy of watching a dull reality burst into a multitude of colours, the pure wonder of it, of knowing,  _this is it_ , _this is how it was always meant to be_.

Kili has lived in a world of green trees and blue skies and red flowers all along; he didn’t have to wait; he didn’t look in Fili’s eyes and truly  _see_  for the first time.

And yet, in a world full of colours, full of shades and marvels and light, Kili only ever saw  _him_.

And now his eyes are alight with desire, and his lips are wet with Fili’s taste on them.

“You never told me,” Kili rasps, “but I _knew_ ,” he says, defiant and beautiful, like a godling challenging his maker, “I knew, I always knew-”

This time, it’s Fili pulling him in, kissing him until his jaw feels sore and his lips raw, until Kili’s shuddering against him, his arms wound around Fili’s shoulders like they were made only for this.

 

 

He’ll never tire of Kili’s colours. The hues of his tanned skin after he’s been in the sun, the flecks of gold and wild green in the brown of his irises, the strokes of red and dusk-pink painted across his cheeks when he sits by the fireplace, now carving away at scraps of pinewood, now nipping the strings of his fiddle with idle fingertips. The clash of black and molten gold on the planes and dips of his shoulder blades, shadows cast on the curve of his spine as he arches under Fili, and trembles like a young leaf in the afterglow.

He molds himself against Fili’s side, from breastbone to hips to the vee of his knees, his head pillowed on Fili’s shoulder. His hand splays over Fili’s heart, and Fili turns his face into his brother’s hair, kisses the damp spot above Kili’s eye.

“When we see Erebor,” Kili mumbles, breath brushing against Fili’s neck, “I wish it could be like this.”

Fili grins, and presses his nose to Kili’s forehead the way Bretha used to do when they were dwarflings. “How do you mean, then - naked?”

Kili yelps in outrage, swatting at Fili’s arm for good measure.

“ _No_ ,” he groans, and Fili laughs against his skin, vibrations tingling through his sated limbs. “I meant. Just the two of us.”

It’s pinpricks of tenderness to Fili’s heart, squeezing it gently in his chest. He holds Kili closer, humming when Kili drapes one of his legs over his, and the warmth of him cradles the jut of Fili’s hipbone, drawing them flesh to flesh.

“I wish it could be so, too,” Fili murmurs. Kili trails his hand down over his brother’s chest, fingers skimming sleepily over his ribs.

“What colour do you think Erebor is?”

Kili’s voice is half-yawn, half-sleep already, soft like a blanket around them. Fili leans into him, kissing his forehead once more, and the dark bow of an eyebrow with it.

“I don’t know.”

Thorin says it’s green, but then Thorin was only told so. He has never seen that green for himself, and so he can’t tell them if it’s green like apricot trees in the summer, or the deep dark green of the fir trees that crest the mountainsides, or the ever-changing, silvery green of hummingbirds. It doesn’t matter anyway, Fili tells his brother soothingly.

“We’ll find out together.”

 

 

At Beorn’s, the bread is soft-cored and fragrant and so warm, the very texture of it almost makes them cry after weeks of dry biscuits. They feast on fresh milk and honey cakes, clotted cream and nuts and berries, and later Fili licks honey off Kili’s lips, down in a corner of the barn, where sunlight peeks in golden from the small crack of a window, and Kili’s hands are hot and sticky around Fili’s hips.

He sinks down onto Kili’s lap, mindless of the hay scratching his bare knees, drunk on the feeling of Kili’s fingers hiking up his shirt to dig into the small of his back. He gives in to the sweet burn in his thighs, leans in close to catch Kili’s gasps with his lips, giddy with the quiet sound of them, with the easy slide of Kili’s flesh inside of him.

It’s never been like this. Never this slow and careful. Never with this warm, sated feeling in his belly, and the most ravenous hunger in his loins.

“Kili,” he breathes out, as if he ever needed to  _ask_  for more. But Kili already knows. Kili only has to wrap his fist tightly around him and let Fili find his pace, hips rolling frantically into Kili’s to drive him inside and deeper and faster, chasing the ghost of pleasure in Kili’s heated touch.

And then he’s spilling, head falling back, his body arching in a long, taut line against Kili, and for the first time since he was five, there’s nothing but pure, blinding white in Fili’s eyes, blending into black around the edges.

“Kili,” he gasps, shivering, sweat cooling against his skin, “Kili-”

And Kili holds him close, kissing the slope of his shoulder, the slow dip of his collarbone, tenderly, as if Fili might break and crumble in his hands.

“I’m right here,” he whispers with closed eyes, his head tipped into Fili, his forehead touched to the hollow of Fili’s throat. “I’m right here, Fee…”

 

 

Bard’s house is small and crowded, drowning in a haze of candlelight and humid walls; the chill of it rises from the lake and seeps into their very bones.

Everything is dulled to a colorless brownscale, here - Fili can scarcely tell his own flesh apart from the worn wood of the table. It’s like watching the world through dirty lenses. The only thing in focus is Kili, pale in the midst of chestnut and mud-brown, healed now and on the brink of sleep, his hand in Fili’s hand - the way it’s been for seventy years now, and seven more besides.

“Fee,” the younger croaks, looking up at him with bleary eyes. Fili cradles his hand close, kissing the scraped knuckles with all the tenderness he is capable of.

“Yes, Kee,” he murmurs back, “What is it?”

Kili smiles up at him, his eyelashes casting a smudge of shadow over his cheekbones.

“Your eyes,” he says, licking his chapped lips for comfort, “they’re never looked so blue before.” And he smiles, and smiles, so strangely content with this knowledge that Fili can do nothing but smile back.

“Is that so,” he asks, his throat ight with unshed tears. Kili nods, a slow and sleepy thing, and Fili leans in to kiss his brow, soothed by Kili’s soft humming sounds.

“Yes,” he lilts, stubborn, stealing one more minute from his rest, “‘at so.”

 

 

The heart of Erebor is the green of rot and sickness, and the halls are heavy with the stench of it. It clings to their clothes and spreads through their hearts, black and foul, like a plague. It’s cold, the Mountain is – cold and silent with the lingering chill of death. Crossing the threshold feels like a curse in itself.

There was once a time when this place filled their dreams with the promise of glory, and crowded their bedtime stories with the golden shapes of heroes and scaly dragon-foes. A time when they thought they would take their mother’s hand and lead her back to the Mountain with all the honors a queen deserves, and let someone else work their fingers raw in her place for once.

Kili used to tell him about the new home they would make here, in a nook of sun-warm stone and moss at the feet of the Mountain; and how they would map the streams and valleys, and live like woodsprites, curious and selfish and free. And in all that selfishness, he would speak of how they’d see Erebor’s halls restored to their magnificence, and watch Dale bloom once more, alive with colours and voices and laughter again.

Now, Thror’s gold unravels beneath them like the ocean, rippling with the lifeless tinkle of coins, torches flickering like slick siren-tails in the distance. It may look like the world to Thorin, overflowing as the room is, but it’s the most hollow sight Fili has ever seen.

 

They curl up together in a crevice of ruined stone, just like the sparrows that used to nest in the cracks of their garden wall, huddling close in the darkness, chest to chest to share their breaths.

“When this is over,” Kili whispers, “I’ll take you away from here. From this place.”

His hair is a tangle between Fili’s fingers, his head a warm weight on Fili’s arm.

“We’ll go home,” Kili promises, tucking his ice-cold nose in the crook between Fili’s cheek and their makeshift pillow. Fili pulls him closer, rubbing slow circles at the small of Kili’s back.

“Yes,” he nods, and lets Kili’s arm settle between them, curled to catch the beating of his heart.

There’s still time to be selfish.

 

 

The battle swims before Fili’s eyes in a terrifying parade of black and white, from the flash of blades to the dark shafts of spears. Every spatter of blood is new air to Fili’s lungs, its deep ruby-red a sign, a certainty -  _he’s still alive_ , it tells Fili,  _you still have time_.

They find each other when it’s over.

Fili sinks to his knees, his ears ringing, and Kili staggers down and into his arms, pale and bloodied and half-crawling in mud, but he’s whole, whole and breathing and shuddering in this speck of dirty sunlight.

Fili cups his cheeks with gloveless hands, and surely enough, even in the titled world around them, Kili’s eyes are still the startling, glossy brown of chestnuts, his stubble still rough like ground pepper against his skin.

“Fili-”

Kili’s tears trickle in between his fingers like the last snow in spring, helpless, inevitable.

“You’re here,” Kili says, _sobs_ in his hands, and Fili knows they’re both falling apart, knows they’ll be mending each other, one stitch at a time.

He kisses Kili and in a heartbeat, Kili is kissing him back, his lips on Fili’s lips, his hands clasping Fili’s shoulders for purchase. His kisses trace the edges and curves of Fili’s face, his nose, his chin, the golden arch of an eyebrow, and Fili returns each and every last one of them, blood singing in his veins.

“Kili…”

Here, they draw a line.

Here is the end, and a beginning.

 

 

Their bed in Dale is clean and comfortable, nestled in the warmest room Bard could offer, and loaded with the thick blankets they haggled over on the latest market day, rich with the swirling patterns of the South.

Contentment settles over Fili, the way honey coated Kili’s fingers in a skin-changer’s barn; it tingles at the nape of his neck, behind his eyelids, in the crevices between his ribs. Outside, men and women are already at work, bustling in the courtyard with the simple joy of everyday routines; here, Kili rouses next to him, lazily slipping a knee between Fili’s legs to snuggle closer.

“Is it morning already?”

Fili chuckles, low and rumbling in his chest.

“Apparently, yes.”

Kili’s hand emerges from the tangle of covers with little stealth, splaying with leisure over Fili’s bare torso. It’s good, all of this. It’s so good, Fili can hardly believe it’s real at all.

Kili yawns, ungraceful and pretty and hot like coals against Fili’s side. 

“Is everything ready for the journey?” He asks, and Fili can tell he’s speaking with his eyes closed, nosing into the crinkles of his neck until his forehead is pressed to Fili’s jawline.

“I believe so. We can see to the last preparations later.”

Kili hums his assent.

The second spring since the battle has come at last, bringing with it longer days and a milder weather; the trees are already dressed in green again, soft and delicate around the branches, and the sun twinkles above them more often than not.

The work inside the Mountain has been _monumental_ , and it will be a few years still before everything is back the way it used to be; but most streets in Dale are free of debris by now, every house has a solid roof, and dwarves and mankind seem willing enough to work together, and share ale and watered elven wine when the day’s work is done.

“Fili?”

“Hm?”

Tomorrow, on borrowed ponies, with supplies Bain has helped them put together, they’ll set out on their journey to Ered Luin, to fall in their mother’s embrace and lead her to her Mountain at last - a queen in all but name.

“Let’s stay in bed a while longer.”

Fili smiles, turning to plant a sound kiss on Kili’s brow.

“You’ve always been the smarter one, Kee,” he says, and giggles when Kili climbs on top of him, grinning wickedly as he straddles Fili’s hips.

“Took you long enough to notice.”

He leans down to kiss Fili, one hand braced against the mattress, the other resting between them, warm and steady on Fili’s chest. Sunlight dapples Kili’s exposed skin, making him a voluptuous silhouette of smooth caramel and cream-white linen above Fili.

“I beg your pardon?”

Tomorrow, they leave. Today, the world is a promise curled around their pinkies, and Kili’s hand’s the sweetest weight Fili’s heart has ever borne.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I don't really know how to feel about this. I wish I could have done better, but eh. I know it's not the best, but I still wanted to contribute something to this event, so here we are :3 I hope it wasn't too bad. Have a nice day, everyone!


End file.
